by Ken Costa
Once we are transformed into abundant living, it is impossible not to shine.
We are called to reflect a new humanity in our work. Our model is Christ, who came to perfect us. He worked not to make us more religious but more human. In the baptism narrative, when we read of the Holy Spirit coming on Jesus as a dove, we witness a moment of deep affirmation of his humanity, not of his divinity. If God had come down to imbue a man with divine propensities, we would expect him immediately to get to work on a series of miracles and other demonstrations of God’s power. But he didn’t. Instead Jesus was led into the desert to be tempted, a quintessentially human activity.
From the start of his ministry to the end, Jesus brought together the fallen parts of humanity by becoming one of us, experiencing the same stresses and strains of a broken world, and yet never letting the pressure lead him into sin. So we behave at work as carriers of this new humanity in a broken and dehumanized workplace. We are called to worship God in every area of our lives, including in our workplaces—to make our workstations our worship stations. We change the ethos by making the working environment more human and more attentive to people’s needs, by establishing appropriate time for rest, and by ensuring that demands are reasonable and reporting lines are clear. That is how we fulfill Christ’s calling, wherever and at whatever level we work.
I think it’s worth noting that people work for a variety of reasons. For many, the primary purpose of their work is cash. Their principal motivation at work is the paycheck that funds their daily needs as well as their off-line pastimes, hobbies, and interests. They don’t really want their jobs interfering with their lives. Their work is a means to an end—for example, to fund a new racing bike, an art collection, or an outdoor activity. Or simply to survive.
Others are motivated at work by their ambitions for a career. They desire to move up the career ladder, to expand their experiences, and to become more skilled in a particular area. Again, their work becomes subservient to satisfying their own desires and needs and is motivated primarily by the status and prestige that comes with promotion and expertise. I remember so well the tension at the time of annual performance reviews. Wanting to move ahead is a powerful drive.
Still others work for a cause. These people throw themselves into something much bigger than themselves, believing in the wider purpose of their work. Their desire is to make a difference in the world—to leave a mark in some way.
All of these are legitimate motivations. It is vital that we earn money in order to provide for our families and those we love. It is good that we take pride in our work and seek to push ourselves on to new challenges. It is certainly good to contribute to the world around us. However, too great a focus on cash, career, or cause can harbor dangers. So often I have noticed career-minded people become neurotic as they constantly try to gauge how they are shaping up to the expectations of their colleagues. If not checked, too great a focus on cash and earnings can rapidly lead to a disengaged interest toward both our work and our colleagues. The great danger of working for a cause, however noble, is that we can come to see our work in purely utilitarian terms. Rather than valuing the little things, we fixate on the bigger picture, the biggest social change.
Missing from all three of these is any sense of the value of work itself. We focus on greater and greater output—more cash, a greater career, a bigger cause—and neglect what we are putting in. In doing so, we tend to miss the opportunities that the workplace itself presents to us.
What we need is a calling. Those who see their work as a calling experience a rich integration in their lives. They sense a purpose, a direction to their activities. Work has intrinsic meaning, rather than being simply a means to an end. They feel that their whole personalities are flowing in and through their work. In many ways this is precisely what the Spirit of God does in our lives. When we are flowing with the Spirit, we are cooperating fully in our God-given callings. We are operating in that grace-zone where everything we do seems to come naturally. Far from being detached or self-centered, those who are “going with the flow” of their callings are highly motivated to enjoy what they are doing for its own sake. They love their work, can manage inevitable tensions that arise, and are welcomed by their colleagues, who sense something beyond the usual cash or career objectives.
As I have searched for my own grace-zone over the years, I have been constantly reminded of the words of Paul: “From one man he made all the nations, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he marked out their appointed times in history and the boundaries of their lands” (Acts 17:26). God is not just interested in nations, of course. For individuals, too, he has marked out the times and the territories of our lives. Sometimes our callings will be a daily grind. But there will also be times of rich reward—periods of our lives when we are living in that grace-zone, feeling the Spirit of God flow through us and into the world.
Full living comes when we walk in lockstep with the Spirit. He reaches through us to the chaotic lives of our colleagues and friends. Because we receive life from Jesus, we can now give life. This is the transforming calling for all of us: to be changed by the Spirit and then be the change to those around us.
This “abundant” life speaks plainly, not some religious babble; drinks joyfully but not excessively; finds positive things to say about individuals; seeks to work better and go the extra mile in helping others flourish and fulfill their potentials. We’re not called to be a tame sect of killjoys with a series of dos and don’ts (generally more don’ts than dos). Our call is the opposite: to live lives touched by the overwhelming joy of the Spirit, even in times of acute difficulty. Encouragement is a gift not meant exclusively for the Christian subculture. We are all called to speak words of encouragement to everyone. It’s amazing how thoughtfully building up coworkers will transform our places of work.
The distinguished Catholic theologian Hans Küng described our mission in the world as one that would see “creation healed.”5 That is what Jesus came to do. That is our calling.
I am so often struck by the words, “Wake up, sleeper, rise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you” (Ephesians 5:14). It feels like a proverbial slap of my face to open my eyes to what God can do. I sense him saying, “I will awaken those who are asleep.” Let us not slumber through our lives and miss out on what God can and will do through us.
When I sit at my desk in my study, I sit between a large mirror and the window. If I look to my left, I see myself, reflected back. If I look to my right, I see the world outside. But if I stand up and look in the mirror, I see myself in the context of the wider world.
This is our challenge today: to see our callings in the context of the wider world. We are not called to sit apart from the world, but to engage with it in the light of Christ; to see a wholeness seeping through every aspect of society. If, together, we rise to an openness to be stirred by the Spirit and to live out of the knowledge that nothing can unsettle the future if it is built on the values of Christ, then a new hope grips us and, like a virus, will infect the world around us. This is a supreme work of the Spirit of God. But he stirs only where he sees servants ready to work at healing a broken society.
Schubert’s Symphony no. 8 is known as the “Unfinished Symphony,” because it is missing the final movement. It stops, wherever it is played, after only the first two. The composer did not intend it to be left unfinished (and musicologists are divided over the reasons why he did not see it through), but no one could step into his shoes in order to make it complete. In many ways Jesus, too, left behind something that was unfinished. He left it to us to complete the work of establishing a community of love in the world. Our engagement with the world is how the world will come to know him.
Are we, like Caleb, willing to put our trust in God? To see the world God loves through his eyes, and genuinely believe that we have all that is necessary to live lives of such authenticity in the workplace as to draw our friends inevitably closer to Jesus?
THREE
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CALLED TO FLOURISH
JOEY PRUSAK WAS AN EMPLOYEE AT THE ICE CREAM CHAIN Dairy Queen. One day, as he was serving customers their food, he noticed that a blind man had dropped a twenty-dollar bill on the floor. A lady standing in line quietly bent down and put the twenty dollars into her own pocket. Young Joey Prusak approached the lady, asking her to give the twenty-dollar bill back to the blind man. She refused, quite aggressively, claiming it was her own.
And then Joey did something very generous. Quietly, he opened up his own wallet and handed the blind man a twenty-dollar bill of his own. The man took the money gratefully, and the Dairy Queen resumed normal business.
A customer in line observed the whole episode and sent an e-mail to the Dairy Queen management, informing them of Joey’s act of generosity. The DQ management then posted about it on Facebook, and the event went viral. A couple of days later, Joey received a call from the billionaire Warren Buffet, a big investor in Dairy Queen. He thanked Joey for showing such integrity and asked him to come to the next Dairy Queen investors’ meeting. As Joey was an employee and representative of Dairy Queen, Buffet wanted him to be there as an integral part of the fabric of the organization.1
Joey’s act of generosity inspired thousands of people to believe that they, too, could do something small to impact the world for good. It was a small act—with a huge impact.
And so it is with God. He takes our small acts of obedience or kindness or goodness and multiplies them for his good, and ours. So don’t wait until you can do big things; start small.
Sometimes small seeds grow into large trees, and sometimes they fail to thrive. More often than not, small business ventures fail. But in the kingdom of God, small acts always have significant effects, though we may not always see them. God sees the attitude behind our actions, and he multiplies the results.
A tiny amount of yeast is put into the ingredients for making bread, and yet it enables the bread to grow several times its original size. God takes what we have, however small, and makes it significant.
You may relate to one or two of these:
“One day when I’ve got a decent house, then I’ll be able to show hospitality.”
“I haven’t got enough money to give, but when I earn more I’ll be really generous.”
“In the future I’m going to talk to people about Jesus, but right now I don’t feel confident.”
“I have no sense of calling to anything specific in life.”
Very often we wonder whether we have any gifts at all that can be used for the common good. It is easy to think we have nothing to offer.
A new junior colleague of mine lived with some others in a rented flat. There was nothing wrong with the flat except perhaps it was a little small and rather bare. But the fact that it wasn’t his and wasn’t particularly fancy made him think that the place wasn’t nice enough to welcome anyone. As a result, he never wanted friends to meet there. He did not take into account that people would like to spend time with him, however small or bare or simple the place was.
God is interested in our lives right now, however bare or unimpressive or simple they may seem to us. He’s interested in who we are and what we have, not what we do not have.
THE PROPHET’S WIDOW
We can learn a good deal about how little becomes large from the story of the prophet’s widow, found in 2 Kings 4. It is a passage that I return to again and again, particularly when it looks like luck is running out. I know that luck is not the right word to use, but I feel it nonetheless when I get to the end of my trust-rope and wonder whether God will honor my small acts of obedience.
The wife of a man from the company of the prophets cried out to Elisha, “Your servant my husband is dead, and you know that he revered the LORD. But now his creditor is coming to take my two boys as his slaves.”
Elisha replied to her, “How can I help you? Tell me, what do you have in your house?”
“Your servant has nothing there at all,” she said, “except a small jar of olive oil.”
Elisha said, “Go around and ask all your neighbors for empty jars. Don’t ask for just a few. Then go inside and shut the door behind you and your sons. Pour oil into all the jars, and as each is filled, put it to one side.”
She left him and shut the door behind her and her sons. They brought the jars to her and she kept pouring. When all the jars were full, she said to her son, “Bring me another one.”
But he replied, “There is not a jar left.” Then the oil stopped flowing.
She went out and told the man of God, and he said, “Go, sell the oil and pay your debts. You and your sons can live on what is left.” (vv. 1–7)
This story is about debt. Debt is brutal. Today people aren’t claimed by their creditors as slaves for failure to pay an outstanding debt. We don’t have—except in the appalling case of human trafficking—families sold into bondage. Still, debt is crippling, as anyone who has been in debt knows all too well. There is no escaping or wishing it away.
The prophet in the story revered God and was respected by others. But he got into such debt that his sons were on the verge of being sold. His destitute wife is not named—she is the every-person of history who has been in a situation of facing problems beyond one’s control. The debt was devastating, and there was no social security system. It is worth remembering, when we look at our personal debt and a debt-stricken world, that debt is a destroyer of hope.
The prophet’s wife faced up to the facts of her situation and cried out to God. When she told the prophet Elisha what had happened, he asked her an utterly absurd question: “Tell me, what do you have in your house?” (v. 2). She replied that she had nothing. All her possessions would have been taken by the creditors and pawned. Bankruptcy had left her home practically bare.
She was trapped in the mind-set of despair, rejection, and poverty, and Elisha needed to change it. He asked her again, “What do you have?”
This time she said, “Your servant has nothing . . . except a small jar of olive oil” (v. 2).
“Nothing except . . .” The great encounter began as soon as she was prepared to live by an exception. Every worldview changes when we realize that the facts we seem to be facing and that seem so compelling are not the reality we live in.
For the first time, she became open to the possibility that she might have something, rather than being painfully aware of all she did not have. It is the possibility of God—an intervening God—that matters in these moments, and he wants us to look around and be prepared to use whatever we have in order to fulfill our callings. We often become so blinded by desperation that we cannot see what we already hold in our hands that might be used to further our callings. I hope the junior colleague I talked with understood what God can do, even with a small, sparsely furnished, rented flat.
Elisha instructed the prophet’s widow, “Go around and ask all your neighbors for empty jars. Don’t ask for just a few” (v. 3). Elisha’s suggestion of not “just a few” was not an afterthought but an essential part of the miracle. Abundance was coming.
I have puzzled over why Elisha allowed this encounter with the widow to happen so publicly. This woman was already humiliated. She was alone and destitute. And it is more than likely that the neighbors were all aware of her plight. Why is it that Elisha wanted to involve them? Could it be that when God works a great miracle, he doesn’t want simply a private transaction between the individual and God? Could it be that he wants the whole community to be involved? The miracle then becomes a witness to the community of God’s provision, particularly for the most despairing.
The woman was obedient. She withdrew to her home and closed her door to the outside world with its judging eyes. She was alone with God and her family—without muttering that if her husband, a prophet no less, had not been so profligate, she would have been cared for. She began to pour from the little jar of olive oil. She poured and poured, and the oil in the jar increased as God met her needs. She had an encounter with God in he
r home with her sons around her. Every single jar was filled.
She had been in desperate need, and now she was revitalized. She had been discouraged, and now she rejoiced. She had despaired about her life, and now she was ready to live again.
She ran to the prophet and said to him, “Elisha, look what has happened; God has met our needs. What do you want me to do now that the jars are full?”
Elisha said to her, “Go, sell the oil and pay your debts” (v. 7).
There is a practical side to the miracle. The woman had to collect the pots. She also had to pour the oil. Eventually she had to enter a business transaction to negotiate a market price to sell the oil, pay the debts, and see her sons freed and fed. And so it is with us—we must also be practical and proactive; let us look around at what we do have, however inconsequential it may seem, and expect to see how God will use whatever we bring to him.
God knew how much oil the woman and her sons needed to live, but forever they would live with the memory of crying out to God and having been heard.
The whole community became a picture of the extraordinary grace of God. This wasn’t a private matter; every person who had loaned a vessel saw that it was full to overflowing. The community saw God in their midst.
Sometimes we are in the position of the prophet’s widow, crying out to God. Sometimes we are in the position of the community members, who were asked if they had any jars to give. The woman would eventually sell the oil; they might not get their jars back. If others are to experience God’s blessing, we may have to spot the needs of our neighbors, to give money or time, and even to sacrifice something of our own.
Like the prophet’s widow, we may think we have nothing. Like the neighbors, perhaps we think we have little to give. We may wish our circumstances were different. But God can use—and multiply—what little we have if we are willing to let him, and if we are willing to operate as a sacrificing and others-centered community. We cannot give what we haven’t got. But what we do have, however small, God can use.